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View SlideshowRequest to buy this photoADAM CAIRNS | DISPATCHColumbus Police Cmdrs. Mary Mathias and Gary Cameron, surrounded by boxes and bales of marijuana, talk about the arrests of three men and the confiscation of 3,363 pounds of pot.

The seizure of more than a ton of marijuana at a Far West Side trucking terminal last week was
not the result of undercover drug buys, confidential informants or wiretapped phone lines, police
say.

Investigators instead credit the bust to a single suspicious citizen and a handful of patrol
officers who trusted their instincts that something wasn’t quite legit about the pre-dawn unloading
of Mexican watermelons.

In a Columbus Police Division property room that reeked of pot, commanders announced yesterday
that three local men — two of them convicted drug offenders — had been arrested. They were charged
after the discovery of dozens of 17-pound bales of shrink-wrapped marijuana that had been secreted
among crates of fresh melons.

“Nothing fancy happened here,” said Cmdr. Mary Mathias, who oversees the patrol zone where the
bust occurred. “It was just really, really good old-fashioned police work.”

The marijuana weighs in at 3,363 pounds, about as much as a Honda Accord. Police said that much
marijuana is worth $6.7 million on the street.

The seizure was made early on April 14, soon after the investigation began with a 3:18 a.m.
phone call from a person reporting a possible theft-in-progress at a commercial trucking terminal
at 1929 Lone Eagle St. The terminal is one of many in the area southwest of the Georgesville Road
interchange with I-270 and not far from Bolton Field.

The caller said several men appeared to be stealing merchandise from a semi-trailer parked on
the terminal’s dark, unsecured lot.

Mathias said the men were transferring large, white cardboard boxes often used to ship produce
from the tractor-trailer to a smaller truck.

“They claimed to have been hired to unload these watermelons,” she said.

Police identified the men as Ronald L. Hayward, 39, of 931 Ruskin Dr., Reynoldsburg; Cameron E.
Jackson, 36, of 7703 Strathmoore Rd. on the Far North Side; and Anthony A. Byrd, 34, of 4630
Charlesfield Dr. on the North Side.

All three have been indicted on charges of drug trafficking and felony drug possession, and are
in the Franklin County jail.

Franklin County Common Pleas Court records show that Hayward and Byrd have prior felony drug
convictions. Byrd also is awaiting trial on a drug and gun case from 2012.

Cmdr. Gary Cameron of the Police Division’s narcotics bureau said the truck likely was loaded in
Mexico with both the marijuana and melons, which were meant to disguise the load. The Police
Division is cooperating with the Drug Enforcement Administration and the border patrol, he said.
Cameron wouldn’t go into detail about who drove the truck into the United States, or where the
marijuana was headed.

There is no evidence that the trucking terminal was involved with the trafficking, he said.